This week, Christians around the world will observe Good Friday. At sundown that same day, Jewish families will gather around their dining tables to celebrate the first Passover Seder. And at sunrise, two days after that, Christians welcome the wondrous holiday of Easter.

A random coincidence? “Not really,” says Gerard Mannion, director of the Frances G. Harpst Center for Catholic Thought and Culture in San Diego. “Two Thousand years ago, Jesus’ Last Supper started out as a Passover Seder.”

This interpretation has been a hotly debated subject among theologians throughout the ages, but today many agree with Mannion, also a professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. “We know that Jesus started out as a wandering charismatic Jewish preacher,” says the scholar. “That’s why many Christian rituals have their roots in Judaism.” Nowhere is it more obvious than during Passover and Easter.

The two holidays are awash in similarities, celebrating freedom, rebirth, the rites of spring, and the retelling of the two dramas

— the Jews’ flight to freedom from slavery in Pharaoh’s Egypt by the magical parting of the Red Sea, and the Passion and miraculous Resurrection of Jesus.

During the eight days of Passover, Jews eat only unleavened bread (matzo) to commemorate the frantic flight from Egypt, when there was not even enough time for their bread to rise. Similar unleavened bread is served during Communion in the form of a wafer to symbolize Christ’s request to his disciples at the Last Supper — to eat the bread and drink the wine (symbolizing his body and blood) “in remembrance of me.”

Wine is extremely important at Passover — four cups are called for during the long, ceremonial dinner, and each person flicks 10 drops on his plate, one for each of the 10 plagues visited upon Pharaoh by God for refusing to free the Israelites. A cup of wine is set out for Elijah, who symbolizes the coming of the Messiah.

Matzo is synonymous with Passover and is a central part of the Seder. During the eight-day Festival of Unleavened Bread, Jews are asked to sacrifice by eating only this “bread of affliction.” Similarly, Christians are asked to fast or sacrifice some personal pleasure during the 40-day penitential season of Lent — a time of reflection and prayer, culminating on Easter Sunday.

On Maundy Thursday, Christians re-enact The Last Supper, replicating the food the prophets ate and the prayers they said. During the Passover Seder, the Haggada retells the story of the first Passover and instructs guests when to eat the symbolic foods.

At all Passover Seders, a ceremonial plate is prominently set in the middle of the table. It contains each of the symbolic foods, their names written in Hebrew.

Zeroa, burnt shank bone, is reminiscent of the lamb that was sacrificed in the Holy Temple, then roasted and eaten for the main meal. It is the primary symbol of redemption from bondage. Christ has been called the Sacrificial Lamb or the Lamb of God because he died for the sins of his people. Lamb is traditionally served at both Passover and Easter dinners.